


The Most Beautiful Man in Atlantis

by smilebackwards



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Based on a Tumblr Post, Humor, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 22:29:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17816714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smilebackwards/pseuds/smilebackwards
Summary: “Who’s this?” Rodney said, irritated, and then the Ancient device in Sheppard’s hand lit up and Rodney had really looked at him with his soft-sharp hazel eyes and spiky, non-regulation hair and it had all been over but the crying.





	The Most Beautiful Man in Atlantis

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on a hilarious tumblr post called [The Most Beautiful Man In The World, Who Lives In My Building And Only Ever Sees Me When I Look Disgusting](http://callunavulgari.tumblr.com/post/146188244710/the-most-beautiful-man-in-the-world-who-lives-in)

Rodney runs into Major Sheppard in the transporter on the south side of the west pier. 

Sheppard stops the door from closing on Rodney’s jacket—tied loose around Rodney’s waist because he’d gotten overheated wedged inside the guts of the control chair—and says something that Rodney misses, busy staring at the perfect cut of Sheppard’s cheekbones and the dark sweep of his eyelashes.

Rodney, who is going to win _at least_ three Nobels when the Stargate program is declassified, whose brain is a crown jewel of Atlantis, says, “What?”

Sheppard looks at him, mouth curved in faint, almost fond-looking amusement. “I said, ‘Are you okay?’”

Rodney looks down at where he’s covered in black grease. The Ancients were capable of advanced space travel but apparently had never mastered basic gear lubrication. Also, he spilled coffee on his pants leg at some point. And there’s a drying trail of blood on his right palm from where he cut it on the edge of one of the metal panels inside the chair. 

Rodney would be slightly— _slightly_ —less mortified if this had been the first inauspicious encounter he’s had with Sheppard. It’s not. This is in fact the third time Rodney has met Sheppard and, unfortunately, also the third time he’s looked like a crazed mechanic while Sheppard looks like he stepped off the pages of Military GQ.

Sheppard showed up with the fourth wave of new military and support staff for Atlantis, the lone Air Force officer in a sea of Oorah Marines, and he’d been in the physics lab when Rodney had just dragged himself, dripping wet, out of the newly unclogged desalination pumps so he could yell at his minions before going in search of a dry shirt.

Sheppard had been sitting on Rodney’s usual lab stool. 

“Who’s this?” Rodney said, irritated, and then the Ancient device in Sheppard’s hand lit up and Rodney had really looked at him with his soft-sharp hazel eyes and spiky, non-regulation hair and it had all been over but the crying.

Simpson nudged Rodney in the ribs with her elbow after Sheppard left. “Is this your first time meeting Major Hottie?”

“Major _what?_ ” Rodney screeched. That could not be his name.

Simpson grinned. “Major Sheppard. He’s new.”

Rodney scowled at her and willed his heart rate to return to normal levels.

Two days later, in the mess hall, he’d been eating Pegasus not-chicken with what the military tried to pass off as barbeque sauce, and spilled half his plate down his front. 

“Anyone sitting here?” Sheppard asked from over Rodney’s shoulder, because that would be the one precise moment of Rodney’s life when someone wanted to sit with him in a cafeteria.

Which brings him back to meeting three, here in the transporter, with Rodney covered in grease, coffee, and dried blood. 

Rodney doesn’t consider himself an unattractive individual. He can go a little mad scientist sometimes when Atlantis is in danger and there are very specific ‘get the shield working in twelve hours or we’ll all die’ deadlines, but in general he is a functioning adult human being with two PhDs, who takes showers and owns clothing that doesn’t look like it’s been dunked in coffee and run over by a truck. Why he can’t manage to convey this impression when Sheppard’s around is baffling. 

“I’m fine,” Rodney sniffs, taking refuge in asperity. “What are you doing out here?”

Sheppard shrugs, a distinctly non-military movement. “Felt like the place to be.”

Sheppard seems oddly pulled by Ancient technology. Aside from drifting to the physics lab and now toward the control chair, Zelenka’s regaled Rodney with jubilant stories of the things Sheppard can make the gateships do. His Ancient gene must be off the charts.

The transporter stops and the doors hiss open. Rodney, of course, was leaning _against_ the doors, so he essentially falls out of the transporter, saved only by Sheppard’s sudden grip on his arm. 

“Um. Thanks,” Rodney says, as Sheppard pulls him fully upright. It puts their faces very close together. There’s a faint scar on Sheppard’s chin that Rodney hadn’t noticed before.

“No problem, Dr. McKay,” Sheppard says. For a moment, his hand stays warm against the bare skin of Rodney’s arm, then he takes a step back, pats Rodney on the shoulder, and walks away.

-

The next time Rodney sees Sheppard, they’re gearing up for an offworld mission. 

“Hey McKay,” Sheppard says, like he’s glad to see him. 

Rodney’s stomach does another of the dumb little flips it tends to do whenever he runs into Sheppard. Most of the military contingent either complains or defaults to Sumner’s stone-faced stoicism thing when Rodney’s occasionally attached to teams for missions.

Teyla and Lieutenant Ford appear shortly after, and the four of them walk through the wormhole and out onto PX5-788 where there’s a strong lead on a ZPM, or at least enough quality, charge-holding Ancient artifacts to be worth their while. Rodney’s in a freshly laundered science team uniform and this is a tech-focused mission. This is his element. Rodney is going to damn well _shine_ and Sheppard is going to be there to see him do it.

Six hours later, they’ve all been shot at by Genii and Rodney and Sheppard have been split up from Teyla and Ford. Rodney thinks Sheppard’s made an official archenemy out of General Kolya. Rodney has a half-charged ZPM clutched in his white-knuckled fingers, but no one is exactly shining. 

“Again?” Rodney says, looking down at his ripped uniform, then up at the sky. “Really?” As far as he’s concerned, this is irrefutable scientific evidence that there is no God.

Sheppard sweeps him up and down with a concerned look. “What’s wrong?” 

Rodney sighs. “Nothing, I’m just the human embodiment of disaster. I swear I can look like a normal person.” At least he has a reasonable excuse this time. 

“You look fine to me,” Sheppard says, with his half-smile. He’s a mess this time too, Rodney realizes. Sheppard’s lost his jacket and tac vest. There’s dirt shading his perfectly chiseled jawline and a tattered strip of his tee shirt is wrapped around the bullet wound in his arm. He’s still the most beautiful man in Atlantis. In Pegasus. The known and infinite universe probably, Rodney thinks. He hopes his feelings don’t show on his face. Controlled expressions have never been his forte.

Sheppard isn’t looking at him anyway. He stands up from behind the ridgeline they’re sheltering below, fires two quick bursts from his P-90, and ducks back down while shoddy Genii-issue bullets come back at them. “There’s a hole in their right position,” he tells Rodney absently, then taps his headset. “Ford? Are you and Teyla still all right?”

“Yes, sir.” Ford’s voice says in their ears. “You want us to come get you?”

“We’d appreciate it. Got any C4 on you? Grenades? I heard these folks love that stuff.”

Rodney can hear the ‘ready to blow shit up’ smile in Ford’s voice when he says, “Of course, sir. Never go anywhere without ‘em.”

Sheppard grins, easy and amused and beautiful. “You’re a credit to the Corps, Lieutenant.” 

-

Bringing back a ZPM apparently cements Sheppard, Rodney, Teyla, and Ford as a permanent gate team. Rodney wouldn’t have thought Sheppard would be one for pushing team cohesion outside missions but he’s not about to complain when it means he gets to spend more time with Sheppard.

Rodney gets popcorn stuck in his teeth on movie night, almost falls off the pier when Sheppard drags him there with a cooler of beer and sandwiches, and insults Johnny Cash right before learning he’s Sheppard’s favorite musician.

Sheppard keeps coming back.

-

Sheppard is on Rodney’s stool in the physics lab again. Rodney didn’t even make a token protest.

“You are horrendously in love and I find it both pitiful and endearing,” Radek says gleefully, sotto voce.

“Shut _up_ ,” Rodney says through clenched teeth. Sheppard is _right there._

“Hmm,” Sheppard hums, looking up from the Ancient Rubik’s cube he’s been fiddling with. “Did you say something?” He’s solved three sides and is working on a fourth and Rodney remembers the excruciating moment Sheppard absently added a negative sign to solve an equation up on the whiteboard that half the physics lab had been fighting over for a week. _Oh no,_ Rodney had thought. _He’s_ smart.

“I have actual work for you to be doing, Major,” Rodney says. He carries over the Miscellaneous box where the science team tosses Ancient artifacts that register as charged on the scanners but won’t activate. “Here.”

“Cool,” Sheppard says. He cups his hands around a sphere with geometric patterns etched into its metallic surface and it slowly brightens to a soft blue-green glow.

They activate a cylinder that sloshes like it’s filled with water and a box of orange-red crystals that Rodney has high hopes for being small scale ZPMs based on a document he found in the Ancient database. This might be the most successful interaction he’s ever had with Sheppard, Rodney thinks, handing Sheppard something that looks like a floppy disk. 

“Ow, _fuck_ ,” Sheppard says. The disk drops from his hands to clatter on the lab table. Sheppard shakes out his arms. Rodney can see the hair on them standing up, shocked perpendicular. A spot on Sheppard’s palm is burnt pink and raw.

“Shit,” Rodney says, tugging fitfully at the waist of Sheppard’s jacket. “Let’s go see Carson.”

Rodney hovers over Sheppard while Carson clucks and dabs antiseptic and lectures Sheppard on the virtue of clean bandages and not overtaxing his hand while it heals.

“It’s just a scratch, Rodney,” Sheppard tells him.

Rodney suddenly realizes he’s been clutching Sheppard’s good hand. “Yes,” he says, “well,” and then he leans forward and kisses Sheppard on the mouth.

Sheppard kisses him back. When he looks up at Rodney, all green eyes and sly charm, he says, wry, “I thought you’d never ask.”


End file.
